By Joe Pinchot
HERMITAGE — Hermitage officials are awaiting a draft of a new consent order with the state that could eventually lead to the state dropping a ban on most connections to the sanitary sewer system.
While city officials are trying to act as quickly as they can to allow new development in the city, Hermitage Municipal Authority member Eric Graven is reluctant to just sign off on a major cost in an important project — engineering services for the expansion of the water pollution control plant — without knowing how the project would be paid for, and what residents and businesses could end up paying.
Graven balked at a proposal from Herbert, Rowland and Grubic, the authority’s consulting engineer, for a $2.7 million contract that would cover design of the expansion — which already has begun — construction and bidding documents, permit applications, inspection and other tasks.
HRG’s Joseph P. Pacchioni came back with a compromise, which Graven and the other authority members accepted Wednesday, approving $1.5 million that will cover design.
Part of the HRG proposal covers the design of anaerobic digestion equipment, the specifications of which Pacchioni said he can have for authority approval in November.
City officials were already counting on Pacchioni’s timeline, and submitted it to the state Department of Environmental Protection for inclusion in the consent order.
City Manager Gary P. Hinkson said the city is “under the gun” to get moving on the plant project, and authority Manager Tom Darby said the city has been awarded a $365,000 state grant that officials want to use toward the purchase of anaerobic digestion equipment, but has to spend the money by July.
“I’d like to keep the design going,” said authority Chairman Fred M. Heiges. “If we don’t we’re not going to make it.”
The current consent order with DEP — created to address raw sewage entering Bobby Run and the Shenango River during heavy flows — requires the city to have the expansion completed in 2010.
The city asked for an extension — Pacchioni’s timeline doesn’t call for construction starting until 2010, and taking two years to complete — and DEP said a new consent order would need to be signed, Hinkson said.
At the same time, DEP did not renew the city’s discharge permit, and considers the plant to be organically overloaded.
City officials said the plant was rerated in 1972 to handle more organic matter, but DEP maintains it never approved the rerating, Pacchioni said.
The plant is approved to handle 3,900 pounds of organic matter a day, but averages 6,000 pounds a day, he said. It has treated up to 13,000 pounds a day, and is asking to be approved for 8,900 pounds a day.
Growth in the city increases the average annual weight of organic matter coming into the plant by about 500 pounds a day, Pacchioni said.
DEP also said it never approved an amendment to the city’s sanitary sewer plan to include a plant expansion completed a couple of years a ago, the upcoming expansion, or Jefferson Township tying into Hermitage’s sewer system, Pacchioni said.
City officials are working to get all its permits and plans updated to DEP’s satisfaction, and continue designing the plant, an estimated $30 million project.
Officials hope to be able to borrow money from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority — up to $20 million could be available — obtain whatever grants are available, and issue bonds to pay for the work.
“We’re trying to minimize the money we have to borrow,” Hinkson said of grant requests and applying to PENNVEST, the nickname for the state infrastructure authority.
A bond issue is more expensive, said solicitor Thomas W. Kuster.
Graven said he is worried that estimates for the expansion keep rising — up $10 million since 1999 — while there is no plan to pay for it, and no estimate of how rates will increase.
Part of the problem, officials said, is officials cannot go to PENNVEST until they receive all the permits they will need for the plant expansion, and the anaerobic digestion system, which “cooks” waste to create a biogas, could actually generate revenue for the authority.
Pacchioni said he will compile a revenue projection for the November meeting.
A rate increase is “inevitable,” he said.
The city last raised rates in 2003 through 2005, and expected the 2005 rates would cover expenses through 2010, Hinkson said.
